A Stroke of Midnight
by Nutty Tree Kitty
Summary: Cupcakes, elementists, werewolves, vampires, and a cat named Mouse. How much better can it get?
1. Harry

A/N: Hiyas peoples! This is my first published story on , and I'm just starting to get the hang of it. I wrote this story a while ago, but never got around to typing it. I still have to type the other chapters (and, ironically, I am not the worlds fastest typer...) so bear with me, and enjoy what I have up already.

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**1. Harry**

**My name is Demara Maria Manoso, and I** am the human servant of the Master of the City of Chicago. How I got to be that way does not matter. All that matters is that someone is trying to kill us all.

That itself is nothing new. People tried to kill me all the time. After all, I was a licensed vampire hunter. I killed vampires for a living. Vampires tended to not take kindly to that, and therefore tried to kill me on a semi-regular basis.

But this time was different. This time, the threat wasn't unhappy vampires. No, it wasn't that. This time, it was unhappy werewolves. Specifically, the local Ulfric of the _Ardo Morte Pack_.

_Ardo Morte_ means 'Death Tree' to the werewolves. Literally. Their lupanar, their place of power, was centered around a giant, ancient elm tree. Their dead were hung from that tree, and the souls left to join with the spirit of the Lupanar.

I got where the _Morte_ comes from. It means 'death' in French, but the _Ardo_? I've never really gotten the connection between it and 'tree'. But then, they were werewolves. Go figure.

Now, any normal person would ask me, 'Why do the werewolves want to kill you?' The answer, quite frankly, is because I'd shot and killed their Lupa, their Ulfric's mate.

Kataline had been one crazy bitch, pun intended, and the world was better of without her. However, she had been a crazy powerful bitch, and mated to an alpha male wolf, of who wasn't exactly stable himself.

I'd killed her because she had tried to kill me. I'm not exactly clear as to why. Maybe she hadn't had a reason. But she had been loco, and was trying to off me.

The upside to the whole situation was that I was alive, and that Kataline was dead. The werewolf pack was a lot happier, too.

The downside was that Luke, the Ulfric, was pissed. Beyond pissed. I suppose, somewhere deep down inside of him, he had loved her. Not something I understood, but it was something that I respected.

And he had declared me werewolf public enemy _numero uno_. Which meant, that me, mine, and ours was on the werewolf hit list. What a bitch.

Me, mine, and ours consisted of me, Constantine, the head honcho of the Chicago vamps, and all his vampy flunkies. The wererats, oddly, weren't included. Which went to show you just how weird the wolves were.

The werewolves were the second most powerful group in the area, and most certainly the largest. They seemed to have no qualms going against the vamps, but they left the rats alone.

Furry politics. You gotta love 'em. The rats had a treaty with us, and were our allies. But they were also the allies of the wolves. Which made them safe from the wrath of the mad wolf.

It was funny, really. The werewolves were against us. And yet, right here before me, was a werewolf!

I was at work. Work is the corporate business, Animators 'R' us. No joke. My boss, Dave, had come up with it. Said he thought it was cute. Blech.

For those of you that don't know what an animator is, it's a person who can raise the dead. You know, zombies. They also usually are able to communicate with ghosts, and the ilk.

And no. I'm not an animator.

I was wearing my usual work attire: a long skirt and a tight tank top, both hot pink. My shoes of the day were these cute little red sandals that I absolutely adored. And I could tell that the man before me _adored_ them too.

Harry Larson was every inch WASP breeding, from the straight blond hair to the fair blue eyes. He was tall, about five inches taller than me. And I'm five feet five inches.

He was dressed in a suit that made him look like some corporate lawyer. I knew for a fact that he drove a school bus, but the image was so real.

The only thing that ruined it was his name. Harry. Honestly, Harry the werewolf. _Hairy_ the werewolf. I, personally, find it very amusing; but, I've been told my jokes really aren't all that funny. Hmmm.

"What do you want?" I said. No preliminaries. No dancing around. Straight to the point, that was me.

Harry gulped, and fidgeted. He wasn't a very powerful wolf. In fact, he was pretty damn low on the food chain. And he was sweating.

Now, I happen to know for a fact that I wasn't scary. I did the job well enough, but I wasn't scary. However, Constantine, and Luke, were very scary. Like, uber scary. A 10 on the scary-shit'o'meter.

If Harry had come to do and say what I thought he had, then he was going against his Ulfric's express orders. That was enough to earn the death sentance.

The Ulfric had ordered that if any wolf got near enough to kill me, they were to do so. The Ulfric's word was law, and magic, too. Harry was literally under a compulsion to kill me.

And if he harmed me in any way, Constantine would go in and slaughter the wolves. Talk about between a rock and a hard place.

"I want you to make amends with our Ulfric," Harry said bluntly. See, he got right to the point, too.

I blinked. "Amends. . ." I said. I had never heard of such a thing.

Harry nodded sagely. "Yeah, amends. Something that'll make him satisfied that the slight against our pack is rectified."

Okay. . .So Luke didn't care that his Lupa was dead - just that his pack honor had been slighted. That bore further thought. . .

"Are you saying that if I do something for him, he'll feel better, and will rescind his order to kill me?" That would be the best news I'd had all week.

"Yeah," Harry said, and you could see that he was relieved. It was etched in the lined of his face, in the way his eyes lightened, as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

"Why are you telling me this?" I demanded, suddenly suspicious.

I wasn't always suspicious. In fact, half the time, I was little Miss Sunshine, trusting everybody. In fact, there was a time before I came to Chicago where I was a little girl scout, and took everybody at face value. Funny, hanging with vamps made me more wary.

"Let's just say I'd rather not die," Harry said.

Well, that clicked. I totally understood not wanting to die. Hell, this whole thing had started because I hadn't wanted to die.

"When would be a good time?" I asked. I wanted to get this done with. I had wanted to get it done yesterday.

"Tonight would work. Our Ulfric will be in the Lupanar tonight." A Lupanar was, as I had said before, a place of power for weres. It was also a place where they could be themselves, away from the confines of human society.

The _Ardo Morte_ pack Lupanar was a large clearing in the woods outside of Chicago, about three hundred feet in radius, a full six hundred feet long. A big fricking clearing. And smack dab in the middle was a giant, ancient elm tree, which I knew to be older than any of the surrounding woods.

"Tonight," I said, more a comment than a question.

"The sooner the better," Harry confirmed.

Now I was really torn. On one hand, I really wanted to go. I wanted to live. But on the other hand, I wasn't allowed to bring guns into the Lupanar. Which, I thought, was really unfair. Let's see: four hundred plus angry werewolves that could easily bench-press elephants, versus lone human with a few knives. . .Even Vegas wouldn't take those odds.

"I'm bringing a few people," I said. There was no fucking way I was going in there alone. I was going to bring back up. See, no grass growing up here.

"That's fine. That's great." Harry was looking positively euphoric. I guess I'd made his day. Fine by me.

I stood up, and Harry did so too. Without a word, I escorted him across the ten feet to my door. The door was shut, and he opened it and walked out into the lobby.

"Thank you, Harry," I said, smiling. I was going to pretend that it was just a business transaction. It wouldn't do for the other humans to know that the local wolves wanted me dead. That would be bad.

Harry, who had already started walking towards the front door, did that thing where you sort of wave from behind, and kept on walking. And then he was gone, the gentle click of the door a testament.

When his blonde form vanished, I looked to the chairs that were by the receptionist's desk. Empty. Instead, Jaced and Nathan were standing upright, their hands clutched in front of them, at the groin. Classic bodyguard pose.

The two were wererats, and my bodyguards. If you're wondering why such beings would even deign to stoop down and guard one as small and insignificant as me, the answer, quite frankly, is that they really didn't have much a choice.

Constantine, my master (I gag at that thought), was also the master of the rats. Yep, that's right, his beast to call was the rat. Incidentally, his Animal to Call was Joe, the Rafe of the rats. The rat king. Jaced and Nathan's leader.

Jaced was big, tall, and mysterious. He had an ethnic tilt to him, but he looked otherwise white. His hair was dark and short, conservatively cut. He also had a MRI Desert Eagle .44 Magnum pistol hung inside his left shoulder holster.

And I knew that because I had asked him earlier if was armed, and he had flashed me. It was a nice view, and it told me a few things: yes, he was armed; Desert Eagles looked nice against black tuxes; and he still wouldn't talk to me.

Nathan was different than Jaced. He was short in comparison to Jaced, five foot seven to the other man's six foot two. Two inches taller than me, and just as American.

His hair was cut short, as well, but it was spiked, and dyed an outrageous shade of green.

He grinned a lot, and teased me incessantly. He also carried a gun, only his was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. It, too, was concealed in a shoulder holster.

"Hey, there, little lady. Still alive?" He drawled out with a phony Southern accent. I knew it was phony because I had family in the South, and they didn't talk like he did.

Nathan was grinning, and I could see his chipped tooth. He had gotten it before he had become a wererat, and it had never healed.

I liked it, actually. It was cool to think that I'd be able to recognize him in whatever form, because he'd be the only rat with a chipped upper right canine.

"No, he jumped me and ate me for dinner," I said sarcastically.

"Did he leave anything for us?"

You know, for a moment, I had to stop and think about that. As I looked into Nathan's grinning face, I thought about what he was. The wererat in him probably wouldn't give a shit if it ate me.

I wasn't worried, though. Nathan had perfect control, and was one of the most powerful rats in the area.

I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

"Anybody feel like dancing with the wolves, tonight?" I asked instead.

The only reason I asked was because they were my bodyguards. They had a right to decide whether or not they wanted to put themselves in danger.

Besides, if they refused, then I'd have to ditch them, and I didn't want to do that. That'd get them in trouble with their Rafe, and, yeah, I admit it, I liked these two. Despite that Nathan teased maybe a little too much and Jaced gave me the silent treatment.

Nathan's grin widened, but, surprisingly, Jaced was the one who answered. Maybe he didn't hate me, after all?

"If we clear it with our Rafe, then we will," He said, and it was maybe the tenth time I'd ever heard him speak. The first time that it was directed to me. It was a genuine miracle.

And hurrah! I got to keep my bodyguards!

"Then call him," I said, and turned around, ready to back to my office. I had a ton of work to do, and was getting behind. Angry werewolves and scary men not-withstanding. Life goes on, right?

I felt, more than saw, the rats move to protect me. It was coming, a big, angry typhoon of power. Totally wicked scary. And I knew who it was. I'd felt that suffocating aura before, but had never been the object of its rage as I was now.

Moments later, my ex-boyfriend, Derrick, burst through the doors.

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A/N: Ooh, a cliffhanger! I know, I know, the guys name is Derrick - I'll tell ya the reason why, though. It's all becuase a certain little aspiring author was suffering from a period of muselessness, and she vistited a RPG site that she had forgotten about. THe first name that she saw was "_Derrick blahblahblah_", and lo, the angsty boyfriend was born!

So, now that you've read the first chapter, you have sort of an idea of what this is about. If you chose not to read further, that is totally alright. If you do so chose to read further on, then may you find the pending chapters as entertaining as you found this one. Whichever way you chose to go, please review and give me feedback - I'd like to know what I could do better, and what I need to fix.

(: Thanks, Princess Kitty


	2. Derrick

A/N: So, you're back, huh? Well, here's the second installation in the tale that follows Demara as she struggles through the turmoil of her life. Enjoy.

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**2. Derrick**

"Shit," I said.

Shit was right. Once upon a time, Derrick and I had been dating, and making a good run for it, too. Then along came big scary vampire.  
Big scary vampire forces me to be his human servant, and then has the gall to insist that I remain true to him. Ergo, celibate. He even insinuated that any being that I dated would be destroyed.

I had been dating Derrick at the time. I broke up with him, saying that I had met someone else.

Oh, come one, give me a break! It's not like I wanted him to know the real reason. Then he'd have insisted on 'saving' me, and gotten fried.

As it was, Derrick didn't take to well to my sudden and apparent rejection. He had gone real quite. Evil-eyed, jaw-clenching, nostril-flaring quiet. And then he had left. It's been a month since I last saw him.

And boy, did he look pissed. His gray-green eyes were shiny, and flashed with surges of rage. His face was set in hard ass-mode, and a few veins were popping out.  
"I'll be in my office," I whispered, and knew that the rats would hearing. They had supernatural hearing.

I skedaddled into my office, and left the rats to deal with Derrick.

Derrick was a 7th level witch - the only witch in three centuries to attain that level. Freaky powerful.

And I wasn't sure how well I'd survive a magical attack from him. My brand of magic was with the elements - fire, earth, air, and water. Strictly ambient, and physical. And his dealt with both, as well as curses, spells, and other 'invisible' works of magic.

The rats, however, were more likely to survive a hit from Derrick. After all, they were wererats, and had their own brand of magic.  
I shut the door as firmly as I could, and locked it. I had two bolt looks, a chain lock, and a floor bolt. Paranoid, who, me? Naw...But sometimes I really didn't want the door to open.

I went to the back of my office, behind my desk, and opened a drawer. I grabbed my office gun, the Browning Hi-Power. It wasn't my main gun - that was at home - but it did quite nicely. And today, it would be my protection.

When I had arranged everything to my liking, I stood still, and strained my ears, trying to hear what was going on. But, silly me, I forgot. Dave, my boss, had had all the wall soundproofed two weeks ago. Nothing got through.

Suddenly, the locks slid out of place, and the door swung open. It creaked, like some of those really old doors did when moved. Normally, I liked it, but right now, it scared the crap out of me.

Derrick stepped through the door frame, and my heart stuttered, skipping a few beats. Crap, this was it.

I had expected Nathan, or even Jaced, maybe both, maybe the Easter Bunny, to come through and let me know everything was alrighty. But it wasn't.

Only, Derrick didn't look so mad anymore. In fact, he looked sad, almost resigned. Which, I must confess, scared me. To me, Derrick was Mr.I-Don't-Get-Down-And-Blue.  
He was the man that got angry, pissed, enraged, outraged, happy, joyous, confused, curious, suspicious - a whole host of emotions. But I'd never seen him get sad.  
Never. Hell, when his sister had died, you know what he'd done? He'd cracked a joke about her!

I wasn't quite sure what scared me more: angry Derrick, or sad Derrick. Angry Derrick might hurt me, but sad Derrick was something entirely knew. Uncharted territory. I didn't know what could happen when he was like this.

Derrick shut the door behind him, and then leaned back on it. He didn't say anything, just stared at me.

I tried not to look at him, but I couldn't help it. I'd missed him. Then I tried not to look him in the eyes - I didn't think I could take seeing his thoughts and emotions right now - but my traitorous pupils rolled up to make contact. We met eyes, and gazed at each other.

After what seemed like an eternity, Derrick broke eye-contact, closing his eyes. He spoke, and it was careful, quiet, calm. As if, if he let any of his emotions flare, he'd crack, and unleash everything.

" 'Mara, I found out about Constantine," he said, and I stopped breathing for a moment. I had really hoped he wouldn't find out. It really wasn't all that well-known that Constantine had taken a human servant, and Derrick didn't exactly walk in the circles that did know.

"Don't call me that," I said, a touch defensively. Derrick wasn't my boyfriend anymore; he didn't have the right to call me that. It was also a very blatant, very painful reminder of everything that I had lost in becoming a servant to an ageless bloodsucker.

"And why not?" He sneered ,"Afraid your master will come and toast me?"

"That's exactly it," I said warily. I would not rise to his bait. I mustn't. So what if I had a master. Just think of his as a boss; one I really don't like but have to put up with anyway, like Dave. Think about puppies! Puppies are always good.

"I wanted you to live. I didn't want your death on my conscience," I added tartly. Puppies not-with-standing, it was hard to stay distanced, hard to not fall hard and feel the burn.

"God, 'Mara, why didn't you tell me? I could have done something." Derrick demanded as he took a step toward me, which I reciprocated be taking a step backward.

I didn't have an answer for him, not one that he'd want to hear. If I had told him that he would have ridden in as the white knight, he'd deny it, and then we'd have one more thing to fight about.

Instead, I countered his question with another question, "What the hell would you have done?" Okay, so maybe I said it a little sharper than necessary, and the cuss-word wasn't very helpful, but give me a break. I'd sacrificed my entire relationship with Derrick to keep him alive, and her seemed to want to die. So sue me if I was a little testy about it.

"I could have done something. Anything. I'm the Tic'tic of the Ardo Morte pack. Surely that gets me something?" He wasn't quite yelling, but he was close. And he had taken another step toward me. This time, I held my ground.

Hmph. The proverbial light shined. Derrick was the Tic'tic, the brujo, the magic-man, for the local wolf pack. Which was news to me. However, they certainly did walk the circles. And it did explain things. Although, it did make me a little afraid. He had ties to Luke, and ultimately, Cataline.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked quietly. It was something that needed to be known, if only to know where I stood, and it seemed like a very real possibility to me.  
Derrick frowned at me, and almost shouted ,"Where the hell did you get that idea? Granted, I felt like strangling you when I found out, and I'm still very angry, but kill you? Never!"

Okay, fuck not rising to the bait.

"Oh, I don't know," I shouted at him with a heavy dollop of sarcasm, "Maybe it's the fact that you're the Tic'tic for the very werewolf pack that's trying to kill me! Luke is your Ulfric, too!"

"Don't you know anything?" He was shouting now, too, "I thought you were supposed to be the hot-shot preternatural expert, and you don't even know what a fucking Tic'tic is?"

His psychic energy was swirling about the room, suffocatingly powerful, and angry, oh so angry. I wish I could say that I had a psychic aura to match, but the sad truth was that my brand of magic ran more to physical prowess rather than mental. I dealt with fire, earth, water and wind. That's all. I can't cast an illusion, or mess with someones memory, or anything as useful as that. No, my powers were for full-frontal physical battle, with physical opponents.

And, whadya know, I started to get a more than little pissed off.

"You're the Ulfric's freaking magic-lapdog, that's what you are!" I sneered, and I didn't need a mirror to tell that the accompanying expression was not pretty.

Derrick went quiet, then, his jaw firmly clenched shut. I could see the jaw bones grinding together, and his temples stood out. It dawned upon me that my expression was probably nearly identical to his.

"A Tic'tic is above the pack politics, Demara," He said quietly, but the words sounded rather strained. "That's how I can run at the Lupanar and not be a werewolf.

And my job is to protect, and to shield. I can never launch the first offensive."

Derrick was calming down all that anger fading away. Or maybe just being stored for a later time. Either way, it was replaced by that same sad expression, which led me to wonder where the anger went.

"You know, some of the pack consider the execution of our Lupa to be an offensive attack," he said softly, and I realized something right then and there: for a while, Derrick had actually contemplated killing me.

"Others think that you've done them a great service, and are prepared to look the other way." The other way meant no punishment and/or death for me. I was liking those wolves.

"And what does the Ulfric think?" I just had to ask.

Derrick grimaced, and that was answer enough, although it gave me two possible answers. Either Luke really, really, really wanted me dead, or he wanted to do something horribly profane to me.

"Do you really want to know?" he asked.

"Not really."

Derrick grunted, and I felt better. That grunt was familiar. It meant that he thought I'd done something silly, funny, or not-that-smart, and that he that he was tolerating it with resigned patience. It also meant that he thought it was cute.

"I wouldn't have told you, in any case. It's not something you need to hear," Derrick said, and, oh, I don't know, maybe it sounded awful arrogant and high-handed to me. But, whatever the case, I didn't much care for the sound of it.

But, because I was a nice, sane little girl, I kept my big fat mouth shut. Derrick was a master witch, one of the most powerful witches to be seen in a century. And he was big potatoes to my small potatoes. Plus, the man suffered from a little thing called "white knight syndrome". The symptoms included: being annoyingly brave, trying to protect everyone, and feeling the need to rescue every damsel in distress that he came across.

He's the kinda guy that'd try and save the girl hidden away in the keep guarded by the dragon, or die trying. Unfortunately, seeing as there weren't any dragons in America, he had to go to the next best thing; which, coincidentally, happens to be rescuing the girl from the magical clutches of the vampire.

And I so did not want Derrick to die while trying to save me. First of all, it was too late to "save" me, and second of all, it really wasn't any of his business. I planned on toughing it out my way. My way did not include buying roses to put on Derricks coffin.

"Fine then," I said in an attempt to end this. I really didn't want to fight with him right now. Sure, I had somewhat of an authority issue, and sure, Derrick sometimes acted like he was an authority, but why borrow trouble? I had enough as it was.

"Did you come her just to tell me that you know about my little vamp problem, or is there something else that you wanted to tell me?" I was actually hoping that he was done. I wanted Derrick out of my office, and away from me. Before he ended up dead.

The expression on Derricks face changed, and I got a hunch as to what was going to happen next. I knew I wasn't going to stop it; in fact, I sort of wanted it.

"Maybe I came here because I missed you?" He said, but I knew that it was only half-true. He might miss me, but he had also come because of the challenge that I presented him; my whole bloody situation was probably really attractive to him.

I'm not calling him a big fat liar, but he sure wasn't telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And who was I to throw stones, anyways? I was just lucky that God hadn't stricken me with lightening yet. Maybe I was immune?

Derrick raised a hand, and crooked a finger. It was a small movement, and fast, but it caused me to take in a sudden breath of air. Oh, boy oh boy, he was going with the silent, dominant persona today.

"C'mere," he said, and his voiced was calm, quiet. It booked no argument, and expected complete and total obedience.

I went.

The moment I was within arm-reach, Derricks long arm snagged the waistband of my skirt, and pulled me closer. He cradled me against his chest, him looking down at me, and I looking up. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then, "'Mara, I sure have missed you something awful" and then he leaned down, and he kissed me.

It wasn't one of those French kisses that involves tongue -- we weren't at that stage anymore -- but, whoo-boy, was it hot. His lips were the same softness that I remembered, and his breath still tasted of fresh mint.

We ate at each others lips. I'd been a whole month for me, and I was desperate. It didn't help that he was uber-handsome, or that I was majorly attracted to the man.

By the time he broke the kiss, I was panting lightly. I guess I'd forgotten to breath, silly me. And Derrick! He had such a smug look on his face. It was, quite possibly, the smuggest look I'd ever seen on a human face. However, my eyes were still unfocused, which made it a tad bit difficult to tell.

Derrick had let go of me. He had his hand on the doorknob, and that smug grin was still plastered across his face. He opened the door slightly, and the smug grin faded into that look of sorrow that I was beginning to dislike. He stepped out with a ,"Love you, babe." and then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

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A/N: Whew, this chapter had even more words than the last! not to mention a kissing scene (which probably sucks; oh well). Anywho, please review, and hopefully I'll have the next chapter typed and up here soon. (If you have any suggestions on how the kissing scene went, I'd would be more than happy to read them!) :)


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